


Unending Wake: Mythos, Pathos, and Philosophy

by harellanart (kabeone)



Series: Those Who Forget [4]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Time Travel AU, unending wake au... au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-11-16 10:11:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18092342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kabeone/pseuds/harellanart
Summary: Continuing on after Dreamers Often Lie.





	1. The Rooftop

Vir stared at the unfamiliar sky. It was not the sky of the nightmare Fade she had seen hundreds of times in past lives, nor was it the star-filled sky of Thedas. This sky was blacker than the most moonless night and the stars, when they appeared, glowed strangely as if the light of them passed through a thin film of colored glass before reaching her eyes. It was difficult to get used to, but at least the black city was nowhere in sight.

"I thought I might find you here." Solas walked carefully on the lower, flatter border of the steeply sloped roof. They were above her rooms, but there was no easy access to this place. For Vir that made it a safe, though precarious, place to find some quiet.

She thought he must have climbed up from one of the balconies near the great hall and walked the long way. Or perhaps he flew.

"Can you fly here?" Vir asked. "I know there was some dancing in the air at the party." She peered down at him from halfway up the slope, balancing there with her foot braced in a hole left by a missing roof tile.

He laughed softly. "They knew a celebration hosted by me would be safe. I could not do so out here without more effort than it would be worth, though I might ask you the same question." He raised a brow at her.

"If I could fly, I'd find somewhere higher." She said turning her gaze back to the sky.

"What is it that you enjoy so much about heights? If I recall, you spent more time on these rooftops than my spies."

She shrugged. "I like the idea that one wrong move and I could just fall off the edge of the world and die. It would make my current problems seem rather silly then." She shifted position and slid down to where he stood. "Here lies the mangled corpse of Inquisitor Vir Lavellan, Herald of Andraste," she intoned. "Who after defeating foreign armies, assassins, and darkspawn magisters, tripped and met her ultimate fate." She grinned at his expression. "I was doing your spies a favor. If _I_ was up here, then they _couldn't_ be up here. Most of them hate heights."

He sighed but chose not to argue. "How do you get down?" he asked instead.

"Do you really want to know?" she asked. Solas nodded hesitantly. She backed up a step and leaped off the edge, twisting in the air as she fell. The look on his face would have made a mistake worth it, but her grappling hook shot out, catching true on a support above her balcony. Her fall turned abruptly into a swing, and she landed safely out of sight from the dumbfounded elf above.

She leaned against the railing, giggling and giddy despite the number of times she had completed that maneuver. She thought she heard a sigh from somewhere above her, but the sound extended into an unfamiliar hum. A light began to glow from above casting rays off the edges of the roof. She backed away from the railing, staring, and saw Solas slowly descending a staircase of green mist. Her jaw gaped in surprise. His magic created a platform just long enough to let him make his way to the balcony. He stepped down from his constructed bridge and the motes of green light disappeared back to where they came from.

She closed her mouth. "Show off," she finally managed. "What about it being more effort than what it was worth?"

"It was worth it to see your expression."

Since she had just been thinking something similar, she laughed openly at that. "So," she said, turning to stare out into the darkness. "What brings you here? I assume you were looking for me."

"There were more questions regarding mortal elves at the council meeting," he said.

She rolled her eyes. "Deshanna is going to be our first councilor, but until she gets here, they want me to make decisions on behalf of everyone. Because of course that makes sense, I'm the only mortal elf here."

"It is not only that. You were a leader of more than the Dalish. They don't know the full extent, but you know the needs of your people better than anyone."

"No," she said shaking her head. "I don’t. I know how to prepare them to fight. I know how to keep them alive. But that's just survival, they need more than that now. I don't know how to help them reconcile their beliefs with what you all lived in fact. I never had that faith to lose. I don't know if we should build them another Dale or a city like Wycome or…" she drifted off looking down at her hand. "I spent all my lives trying to save them. I never put a moment's thought into what to do if I succeeded. And yet, I have to speak for them. There's no one else right now." She chuckled. "At least I'll still be useful for a little while."

He glanced at her, trying to catch her expression in the dim light from the doorway behind them. "What do you mean?"

She ducked her head, hiding her expression completely. "This is a place of wonders, but for me, it's like a book full of beautiful pictures with words that I can't read. The best I can do is try not to get in the way. I'm not used to being idle."

Her answer surprised him, though he knew it should not have. "Yet you are here because I asked you to stay."

She smiled briefly. "I wanted to stay. You know that."

He frowned. "You wanted to be with me, and then I spend most of my days steeped in magic where you have no place."

She snorted. "You don't have to rub it in."

"I offered nothing in return," he continued, ignoring her attempts to make light of it.

"Solas, it's fine."

"It is not," he insisted. He thought a moment longer then continued having made up his mind. "I want to give you something. Something of myself, if you wish," he stumbled over his words not knowing how they would be received. "I may not be the same man that your Hope was but-"

"Solas," she interrupted, turning to face him fully. "Are you offering me sexual favors?" She paused searching his face. She raised both brows. "Because I accept."

He blinked in stunned silence as his half-formed thoughts dissolved like the conjured clouds that had brought him to the balcony. Vir stared back solemnly, matching his silence, but as the minutes crept past she could not hold it and cracked a smile.

He sighed and closed his eyes, trying again. "I was going to say that I am not your Hope, but we shared a common history. You once said that you didn't know much about him." He offered her a chance to confirm, to which she nodded. "Perhaps, I can share my past with you of the life I lived before all this, and by knowing me, you can learn of him as well."

Vir blinked a few times, looking away. When she looked back, she managed a smile. "I would like that," she said.

"Good," he replied and leaned against the balcony looking out over the world they had built together. He could not help but glance at Vir from time to time. He could tell that his offer had moved her, but a smile lingered on her lips and a hint of laughter lurked at the corners of her eyes. "You really would have accepted sexual favors, wouldn't you?" he accused.

The laugh she had been holding back finally escaped. She leaned her head against his arm. "Too late," she said. "Tell me a story."


	2. The Rotunda

The rotunda had once been a shared space for most of the Inquisition. It was the nexus between Cullen's office, Leliana's aviary, and the main hall. Soldiers, spies, mages, templars, and diplomats all passed through as they went about their business. Solas had spent most of his time there studying and painting his murals.

When he began modifications to Skyhold, Solas took the entire tower for himself, changing the exits so that it was no longer possible to cross through it. Vir had teased him about such excessive use of power, but he wanted some comfort and privacy.

Now there were only two ways into the tower: one led to his quarters and the other to the main hall. Both required a rune key to unlock. His orb floated high above the floor near the rafters where Leliana's ravens had once lived. He called it to his hand, its green light cast shifting rays on the map that covered the table before him. It was a miniature version of Skyhold which sat at the center of newly combined Fade. Beyond the edges of their domain was the vast and ever-shifting Fade. While it was not possible to know precisely what lay beyond their borders, it was possible to understand the ideas that gave them shape. Their next endeavor would be to expand into the Fade, claiming more territory.

Garas had inspected the areas immediately surrounding Skyhold and deemed them insufficient. He had rallied enough of the council to back his demands that they each be given a new territory where their people could settle. And so it was decided: eight regions bordering the original domain. Seven for each member of the council that demanded one and the eighth for Vir's Dalish and any mortal elves who wished to resettle.

The door unlocked and Vir pushed it open. She carried her travel gear over her shoulder. "Ready?" she asked.

He frowned. Despite Vir's experience, he still had misgivings about bringing her along. The first obstacle would be in summoning suitable mounts to carry them to their expansion targets. It would be simpler if they could travel by aravel, but aravels were slow and highly conspicuous. He was not precisely worried about the spirits that lived near the Skyhold location, but the farther out they went, the more dangerous the Fade became. Attracting the wrong kinds of spirits could make for problems for them if he was in the middle of casting. He intended to call for spirits to carry them, but he did not know which would answer and he was still uncertain what her reaction would be to riding one. Even in all her many lives, she had never claimed to have done that.

"Solas?" she said. She had moved to his side and was looking at him with growing concern. He realized he still had not answered.

He shook himself out of his paralysis. If Vir did not wish to travel with a spirit, he could find one of his guards to accompany him. "You don't have to come with me," he said.

"I know," she said. "But you need someone to stand watch, and that's one of the few things I can do." When he did not reply she raised a brow. "Why? Do you not want me there?" She was hurt though her expression did not show it, she could not hide it in the Fade.

"Apologies," he said, shaking his head. "I am simply concerned about our transportation."

"Spirits," she said with the same matter of fact way she would have said halla. "I was curious about that. Can you summon them here, even if we're already in the Fade?"

"Yes. It will be the first test of our new home. We elvhen may still need eluvian to travel great distances, but spirits were never so constrained before the Veil. I will see if a spirit is willing to come to us, there is no guarantee that any will. Regardless of who or what answers, I will not compel it to help." He said the last hoping she would understand that if they chose not to carry her, he would not force them.

"Of course you wouldn't," she reached out and touched his arm. He covered her hand with his, glad for her reassurance and that her words matched her meaning. "I wouldn't want you to. Now, let's see if we can find someone willing to help."

The circle was a formality. It would not lure a spirit or trap it. Instead, it was a beacon for a spirit with a specific set of characteristics. He sent his request into the Fade and waited for an answer. It was not long before a wisp of black smoke began to form in the circle. It grew in density and volume until it filled the entire space. It shifted and wrapped in on itself growing legs and a tail, finally taking the form of a massive wolf. It was a type of spirit familiar to him, though not one that he personally knew.

 _Greetings, Fen'Harel, sunderer, and restorer of the Fade._ It did not make a sound, but its meaning carried through to his mind with surprising clarity. _We have waited long for this day._ It raised its head, sniffing the air, testing its quality. _This is not the true home, but it will suffice._

"Thank you," he replied, relieved that it approved. "We are going to the far ends of the new home. Will you take us there?"

It considered him and Vir for a moment. _You, yes. Her, no._ Solas glanced at Vir. She was watching them converse but did not appear to be able to sense what the spirit was saying.

"Why not?" Solas asked. It was large enough to carry two. He would not force it, but he might try to convince it. Perhaps he could offer it something. He was about to say more, but it answered.

 _Someone else is coming_.

The circle filled again this time with green light. A horse larger than the largest draft horse in any human stable appeared. Green flames formed its mane and tail, and its translucent flesh revealed an equally ghostly skeleton beneath. On its head, a single horn jutted out from between fiery eyes. It walked up to Vir and nudged the cap on her left arm.

At first, Vir's expression mirrored his own surprise, but then she reached up to touch the ridge of its nose. It was solid despite its see-through quality, the skull beneath was marred by a jagged, irregular hole, likely caused by a weapon. "No sword?" she asked.

It gave an equine laugh and tapped her forehead with its horn. She did not flinch though Solas did.

"Well, aren't you pretty now," she said casually. It laughed again and turned aside, an obvious invitation for Vir ride. It wore no saddle or any other contrivance that would aid in mounting, but Vir tapped its front leg. It lifted its hoof, bending it back. That was all she needed to boost herself up and climb on. She settled into place and only then turned her attention back to Solas and the wolf spirit. "An old friend from the Inquisition," Vir explained. "He's put on some weight." The horse bucked at that, and it was Vir's turn to laugh.

 _Shiral_. The wolf said and knelt. Solas mounted, using the time to gather his wits.

"The Pridelands," he instructed, pointing in the general direction of the first expansion. It was all either spirit needed, and they launched themselves at full speed toward their destination.

Solas glanced over his shoulder where Vir rode slightly behind and to his right. The wolf and horse were matched for pace and seemed to share their love of speed. The surrounding landscape became nothing but a blur, and the wind of their travel whipped through her hair. She smiled when she noticed his attention. It was a fierce, almost feral sight that matched the light in her eyes. He smiled back and wondered if Vir would ever stop surprising him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still getting the hang of writing again. Sorry :]


	3. The Pridelands

The spirits only slowed when they reached the border, a wall of mist that stood between them and the untouched Fade, stretching into the sky and beyond. More translucent than fog, they could still make out a distorted view of whatever was on the other side.

"Is that the Veil?" Vir asked.

"The Veil separates the Fade from the physical realm. This does the reverse, bringing them back together. It is part of the Veil, but a different composition. A counterpoint, if you will. Spirits may cross it more easily and to do so will not damage them the way that crossing the Veil can. However, it is difficult and may be uncomfortable," Solas explained. He spared a moment to marvel at the fact that while Vir had told him precisely how to build the wall before them, she had no concept of what it was. If her memory had been anything less than perfect, it would have been disastrous. "I will shield us so that we may cross safely."

The wolf stopped, and the horse moved past it. It regarded the wall warily but said nothing he could sense. Then the horse made a noise that Solas did not understand, but the wolf snarled and lunged in its direction. Vir was off her mount and between them before Solas could begin to react. She had drawn her blade, a double-sided weapon which unfolded with a menacing snap. The wolf backed down.

"Hold," Solas said, readying his magic to place barriers between his companions if necessary.

_It called me a coward._ The wolf snarled.

Standing behind Vir, the bog unicorn danced in place. Solas was impressed at how well it communicated mockery without words. In a way, it and Vir were well matched.

"There is no cowardice in caution," Solas admonished the spirit horse. It snorted.

_I lived here before you restored it. I lived here before you sundered it. I will remain._ The wolf said with dignity.  _I will wait here for your return._

"Of course," Solas said. "Thank you for carrying me." He turned to Vir. "We can travel the rest of the way on foot," he said.

Vir nodded, sheathing her weapon, but the horse shoved her from behind and presented its side again. She looked up at it, her hand on her hip, then she sighed and climbed up again. The horse paced toward Solas, studying him for a long time, it lowered its horn until it touched the top of his head. This time he managed not to flinch. It turned and presented its side, and Vir offered her hand. Solas took it and let her help him climb up behind her. They shifted their travel gear around until they could both ride comfortably.

Solas wrapped his arms carefully around Vir's waist. He cast his shield over the three of them. "The way forward may be difficult," he warned the spirit horse. "The air is denser in the barrier. My shield will protect us, but it will be as running through water."

In response, it pawed the ground and charged. They hit the barrier between worlds at full speed. His shield contracted slightly, holding, but the change in pressure made his ears pop. The horse did not slow, the only indication that the barrier provided resistance was the sparks that flew off the edges of his shield. Vir shook in his arms.

"Are you alright?" he asked, lowering his lips to the region of her ear. She turned slightly, and he caught sight of her expression.

She was laughing.

She yelled something in Avaar, a warcry that roughly translated to "faster." The horse screamed back and met her challenge. His ears popped again. He sighed, pressed his forehead into her shoulder, and held on for his life.

They reached the end of the barrier far sooner than he expected. It would have taken them hours to walk through it. Instead, mere minutes after charging in, they were through, and the Pridelands stretched out before them.

The land was mountainous, but unlike the sharp gray crags and cliffs of the Frostbacks, these mountains were softer, as if time itself had been gentle with them. The rock was mostly red, striped with thick bands of gold and thinner layers of purple and blue. The stripes, wrapping around the mountain hills, formed crazy patterns looking for all the world like a lumpy blanket cast aside by a giant. The Black City floated in the distance, the only thing marring the colorful landscape.

"It's beautiful," Vir said, her surprise evident.

"Not all areas of the Fade are dark and unpleasant," he said, smiling at the top of her head.

"Why is it called the Pridelands?"

Recalling the memory of what had once been there was like a physical blow. Vir must have sensed it, covering the hand that held her waist with her own. He cleared his throat. "This was a place of creation and discovery. Scholars, both spirit and elvhen, gathered here to learn from each other."

"Like the Vir Dirthara?"

"Very like, but the Vir Dirthara was a library. This place held a vast city where people lived and worked in the pursuit of knowledge. It was a source of great pride for my people. Later, some would say it was arrogance. Now, all that remains is the rock that lay beneath."

"Did… the Veil do that?" Vir asked.

"No," he said. "The war did."

 

* * *

  
Solas opened his eyes. His orb floated in front of him, still glowing from the power it had channeled. The sky had been frozen with the light of sunrise before he cast the spell. Now, though the light was subdued by the barrier, it was late afternoon. The mountains were still a rainbow of color, but clouds now formed at their peaks. The Black City was nowhere in sight.

Vir stood beside the spirit horse, keeping watch not far away. She turned as if she sensed his gaze and smiled. She made her way over and sat beside him, handing him a ration bar which he demolished within seconds. Chuckling, she gave him another.

"Did anything happen while I was occupied?" he asked between bites.

She shook her head. "I think a group of spirits came to investigate, but they stayed fairly far away. Other than that, nothing."

"I hope it was not too tedious for you," he said. They had chosen to travel lightly. As a result, Vir had brought none of the things she would usually have to occupy her time.

"I had company," she said, pointing at the spirit with her chin.

"Does it have a name?"

"I assume so, but it's not as if he could tell me."

"He does not speak to you?"

"No. Did the wolf speak to you?"

"Yes," he said surprised that she had not known. Vir handed him a canteen as he finished his rations. He took a sip, then another, grateful that it was only water. Past guards had given him restoratives in the form of tea. "If the spirit does not speak to you," he said, handing the container back to her. "How do you know what it means?"

She shrugged. "I've known him for a very long time. Besides, he has a way of making it known when he wants something."

Solas chuckled. "So I have seen."

"Why does he look like that now? Is this his true form or did he change because he passed through the Veil?"

There were many ways a spirit could find itself in the physical realm. He considered the most likely possibility. "The bog unicorn appeared to have died in battle. The veil is thin in battlefields and places that have seen a great deal of death. It may have found a dying horse and joined with it, merging its own personality with the host."

As if the spirit had been listening, it turned its head in their direction. It snorted but did not seem interested in contradicting him.

"What would he be if he went back?" Vir asked.

"It may not be possible without another physical host. Finding the right circumstances for that would be rare. A spirit can also be summoned by a mage, but they would be vulnerable without protections."

"Ah," Vir said as if he only confirmed what she suspected. When Vir left the Fade to return to her world, she would likely never see the bog unicorn again.

"I'm sorry," Solas said.

"It's alright," Vir said, smiling, not at him but the spirit. "I always worried about him running around, terrifying the farmers. I'm glad he found a way back."

"As am I," he said. "It is fortunate that his time in the physical realm did not damage him."

"Why does it hurt them?" she asked.

"Partly because of their wish to understand mortals. They reflect what mortals feel. This is not wrong in itself, but without a deep connection to the Fade, only the strongest mortal emotions can be felt. Hunger and rage, desire and despair are all that spirits are exposed to and thus the only kind of spirits mortals encounter. It is a harsh reflection of mortal kind. Little do they know it."

"Did you judge us based on the spirits we influenced?" she asked carefully.

"In part," he admitted. "There was more than enough for me to see in the Fade to justify my feelings, but witnessing their effect on spirits was certainly a confirmation of my assumptions." Assumptions that had proven incorrect, but Vir did not say it.

"So, spirits in my world rarely change except for corruption." She said, altering the subject. "How were they before?"

Solas stared at the brilliantly colored hills. To his sight, he could see a few spirits in the distance investigating the changes to their home. "They were much like us," he answered, "better in some ways."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if I should break up the chapters so they're all about the same size ~1.5k words or if it's ok to have some be really stupid long.


	4. The Ruins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A story about a boy who met and befriended a spirit.

"Long ago," Solas began the story, "there was a ruin near the village where I was born. It had been a large town, almost the size of a city. Rumor was it fell to some kind of madness or plague. No one wanted to go there."

"Except you?" Vir prompted.

"Except me," he agreed. "Imagine an entire civilization, gone in a blink. No one left to remember how they died, much less to tell the story of how they lived."

"I don't need to image that," she reminded him gently.

"Of course," he said. "I apologize."

She patted his arm. "Go on."

He cleared his throat. "When I arrived I began exploring, attempting to reconstruct how they had lived. There was little left that had not been scavenged by wild animals or consumed by the elements over time. I made a camp and went to sleep disappointed, thinking I would leave the next day. But as I slept, I heard voices. I woke to a world that was not the one I knew. All around me the city stood in ghostly relief against the night. The shadows of those who dwelt within played out their final days again and again."

"I watched as a lone figure, a woman from what I could tell, knelt in the town square crying out a warning to anyone who would listen."

_Beware the blackened skies. Beware the blood that binds. Beware of your own kind._

"They avoided her at first, but she persisted, and eventually a few men ran her off, throwing stones until she fled. I followed her as far as I could, her cries of warning turning to curses until the memory of her faded away. It was then that I noticed the spirit." He smiled at the memory. "It was small, no greater than a wisp. It had been watching the city as I had. It too had followed the woman until she disappeared and it had been watching me as well. I was surprised when it spoke to me. No spirit had done that before. Most ignored or avoided me."

"Truly?" Vir asked, practically radiating her surprise. "Why not?"

He chuckled. "Spirits are much like people. I was not yet a mage and had little to offer. Why would a spirit want anything to do with me? But it was not looking for power. It searched for something else, but it knew not what. It saw in me the same things it felt in itself. I asked if it had seen what happened after the woman left. It showed me.

Not long after the woman's warning, a legion of soldiers neared the town. Smoke from their campfires could be seen for miles on the horizon. They were moving out to fight in some long-forgotten war. The leader of the army, a general, came to the town in search of provision and met with the local leaders. It was unclear what was said, but his coin clinked heavily, and the ghosts of the city council glowed with their greed. The soldiers were welcomed and allowed to camp just outside the walls as carts of food and goods rolled out to join the legion's supply train. The soldiers spread their tales of war and victory among the township, and no few young people volunteered to join their ranks. The leaders began to have misgivings, but the families that had provided a soldier were compensated generously and the will of the people now heavily favored the legion. The ones that had first welcomed them were forced to hold their peace. On the night before the troops were to leave, a feast was held, and each new recruit was brought to the town square to receive blessings from the legion's priests. They knelt on a stage before their families, their people swelling with pride that was visible even through all the time that had passed. Then the priests slaughtered them one and all, sacrificing their lives to cast a terrible magic on the entire town."

"The blood that binds," Vir said, repeating the woman's warning.

"Yes. Together the new recruits had ties to every person in the town, down to the youngest child. The priests used their blood to bind their families and their people. The entire town walked away from their homes and lives without protest and joined the service of the legion. Their faces were marked with symbols indicating the priest that controlled them and all the wealth they had traded for was reclaimed. When the legion moved off, the buildings were burned, leaving no hint of who they were or what had happened."

Vir offered no commentary, and to his eyes barely registered shock. She had already seen such terrible things. He wondered how the rest of her Dalish would react to such a tale of their ancestors. He continued, "The memory ended and I turned my attention to the spirit. It had felt the grief and rage in every victim bound by those priests. I wanted to help, so I spoke to it of what we had seen. Not just the terror and pain of the end, but their pride in how they had lived. I told it that learning about them was important and that knowing what happened in some ways set them free. It thanked me for my words and disappeared. I woke again in the ruins where I had gone to sleep. It was the first time I had truly walked the Fade."

"I began to understand how my dreams worked and continued my search for knowledge in the ruins. The spirit would join me from time to time, showing me a memory of a child's first words or a young couple's first kiss. When I had learned all I could, I went home to share my findings."

"Did they believe you?" Vir asked, her tone was doubtful.

His smile was brief and bitter. "No. I spent a few more years there, but in my dreams, I wandered as far as I could. Eventually, I realized I had to leave if I was ever going to learn what lay outside the borders of my home. I wandered on my own, making my way across Elvhenan, searching for knowledge in the past and present. Over the years I encountered the same spirit, but it had changed. It had found a new shape and purpose, one she said that I had helped to guide. She delighted in learning and sharing knowledge. She was the same as she had been, but more. Spirits became my true friends, and she the first of them all."

Vir looked at him solemnly. "That spirit. She was a spirit of wisdom, wasn't she?"

Solas nodded. It was one of the subjects he and Vir had never broached. He remembered when his friend had been captured. He remembered Vir's long disappearance, sudden return, and their brief argument afterward borne of his anger at what she had done and Vir being Vir. He had searched for Wisdom in the Fade, hoping that somehow Vir had destroyed some other demon. He had wanted to ask, but he had been unable to bear speaking of her until now.

Vir pursed her lips as she often did when she was deciding something. She took a breath and spoke. "He comes to me as though the Fade were just another wooded path to walk without a care in search of wisdom. We share the ancient mysteries, the feelings lost, forgotten dreams, unseen for ages, now beheld in wonder. In his own way, he knew wisdom, as no man or spirit had before."

The pit of his stomach burned. She knew Wisdom. Of course, she did. Everything that happened during their time in the Inquisition had happened before. Solas did not speak. He focused on breathing as the roaring in his ears grew to drown out everything including thought.

"Cole knew her through you," Vir said, her voice so far away he could barely hear her. "He told a different Solas how Wisdom felt about him when she was destroyed after being captured."

"A different Solas," he repeated. "You knew about Wisdom." It was not a question, though not quite an accusation.

"Yes."

"Then." His voice shook. "Did she… did you…?"

"Yes." Her voice remained steady, but her eyes shifted, glancing downward at his hands.

His fists were clenched at his sides and glowed with uncast power. Not long ago, he would have struck her down for killing his friend. Now he knew it was never that simple. He could not stop his tears from falling, but he managed to unclench his fists.

"Will you... tell me what happened to her?"

Vir's posture lost some of its tension, but not with relief. He wondered if she would prefer that he attack than ask her that. When she met his eyes, her tears matched his own. "Which time?" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for the comments about chapter length. i'll try to just relax and post pieces that make sense as a single chapter and warn for chapters > 4k words.


	5. The Exalted Plains

_"Can you explain to me why we're out here fighting bandits," Blackwall said for the third time that morning. They had just dispatched a motley group that had been in the midst of an ambush on a Dalish scout._

_Vir checked each body looking for a face she would recognize, one that she had always seen dead, but always from the claws of a demon. She did not find him. "There's a civil war between Empress Celene and Grand Duke Gaspard," she answered. "Right now they're at a stalemate. The bandits are taking advantage of it and causing grief to both sides. With their interference it's likely the war will only end when one or both sides are too weak to keep fighting." She scanned the horizon._

_"I can see that," Blackwall allowed, "but what's that got to do with the Inquisition?"_

_"We are going to need more support if we're to face Corypheus."_

_"I don't think either the Duke or the Empress will be impressed with us fighting bandits," Blackwall said sheathing his sword._

_"The Inquisitor may be correct," Solas said, coming to her defense. "This area has been ravaged by battle. The Veil is thinner here than most. If these bandits are prolonging the conflict, they should be eliminated." He bowed in her direction, she smiled gratefully for the support._

_"Fine," Blackwall said. "Let's get on with it then. Off we go, searching the hills for random bandits."_

_Solas considered the sense of his words and the time it would take to root out the hidden fighters. "It may be possible to search for open fighting."_

_"You mean aside from the war?" Blackwall asked._

_"The war is currently at a stalemate, remember? Both sides have dug in, and the only conflicts are those caused by bandits while the Orlesian forces lick their wounds." No one argued the point. Solas nodded to himself and sat down, leaning back against a tree. "This should only take a moment." He closed his eyes and relaxed, eyelids flickering rapidly as if in dreams, and eyes moving back and forth beneath them. Suddenly his eyes snapped open, he yelled, "No!"_

_He was on his feet, running before anyone could react. They caught up with him, but he did not acknowledge their presence. He only ran faster, straining to reach his destination. They arrived at a clearing near a river. A single archer was attacking a small group of mages. One of them was already dead. Whatever their talents, combat was not one of them._

_A circle of stone columns stood behind the remaining mages and at its center a spirit. Blackwall spotted the bandit first and charged. It all happened so quickly that Vir could do nothing to stop him._

_Years later Vir would reflect on what the mages must have seen. A sudden attack by an archer, obviously a scout. Behind him, another man, large and scruffy, his armor good, but not bearing any coat of arms they would recognize. The man was charging straight toward them. They would not have thought he was there to protect them. The lead mage shouted a command and the spirit bound inside the circle changed._

_Blackwall hit the bandit from behind. He did not see the demon charging them, not that it would have mattered. Its massive claws went straight through his armor leaving deep furrows in his chest. He dropped to the ground with only a gurgle of protest and lay still. Vir and the other companions faltered. Solas fell to his knees as the demon roared, searching for a new target._

_Vir ran to Blackwall and rolled him over. He wheezed in pain and shock, eyes looking everywhere and seeing nothing. She tried to pull his coat over his wounds in a feeble attempt to staunch the bleeding. Moments later his eyes closed and his body went limp in her arms. Vir hugged him, crying an apology, neither noticing nor caring that the demon had turned its attention on her. It lumbered toward her, the air around it charging with electricity. Vir turned her gaze to the massive creature and waited._

_Someone shouted, and a rain of fire filled the clearing. A shield surrounded Vir and Blackwall while the other members of their party scattered. The demon roared as the flames surrounded it, consuming it. The mages, with nowhere to run, could not muster a defense and burned with it. The firestorm ended, and Solas walked through the ash to where the demon had been. He gazed at Vir, his rage barely held in check, then he turned on his heel and walked away._

_The others came and took Blackwall from her. Only then did Vir wake from her stupor. Refusing help, she searched for traces of where Solas had gone and chased after him._

_"Solas," she called, not bothering to hide her pursuit. "Solas wait, please."_

_Suddenly, he was in front of her. "Why, Inquisitor? Are there more bandits you need to kill?"_

_"I'm sorry," she began._

_"No, I'm sorry," he said, cutting off her speech with a wave of his hand. "I cannot believe I thought you might have known what you were doing. Do you have any idea what you have done?" He grabbed the front of her jacket, shaking her once. His hand came away caked with Blackwall's drying blood. "We've lost Blackwall, but not only that."_

_"I know," she said miserably, "the spirit."_

_"That spirit was my oldest friend. They summoned her for protection."_

_"Solas," she tried again._

_"No," he interrupted. "All this hunting we've been doing, driving the bandits out. That is why they summoned her. That is why they ordered her to kill. They weren't even using her against the bandit. They ordered her to attack Blackwall."_

_She sobbed into her fist remembering the body being taken back to camp._

_"Then you just sat there. The blessed hero sent to save us all. I was forced to kill my friend to save you." He spat the last as if it were poison._

_Vir bowed her head. "You shouldn't have."_

_He scoffed. "What choice did I have? Without you who will seal the rifts? Who will lead the Inquisition to defeat Corypheus?"_

_"It doesn't matter," she said, sinking to her knees. "Even if we defeat him, you'll never get your orb back. You should have let me die the first time you tore down the Veil, Fen'Harel. You never should have brought me back."_

_Solas' face had gone slack with surprise when she mentioned the orb, but when she called him by name, she saw fear. He backed away glancing around as if searching for witnesses. She stared at the mark that marred her hand and waited for him to make up his mind. He turned and fled._

 

* * *

 

 

"He just ran?" Solas asked incredulously.

"He'd been through a lot that day," Vir said with a shrug that belied the pain of the memory. "He came back eventually. That was the first time I told him he had sent me back."

Solas considered his own reaction. "At least he did not try to kill you."

She laughed without humor. "I won't pretend I wasn't hoping for it. Early on, I thought Wisdom's death was part of what convinced you to tear down the Veil. That even if I was real, the rest of the world wasn't worth saving. So, I tried to save her. Maybe if you didn't have to watch her die, it would be different, or maybe she could tell me something that would help me convince you. But I never managed to reach her in time. All I could do was free her from her bindings. She'd return to herself, but she just couldn't live like that."

"Killing would have created wounds greater than a change in her appearance," Solas said, trying to imagine what his friend had gone through.

"Yeah," Vir said almost to herself. "Anyway, the next time I tried to save her I went alone. When she became herself again, she said she remembered me. She hadn't noticed me the previous times, but as a demon, she remembered looking into my eyes before she died."

"She remembered? How?"

"I don't know."

"But then... why did she not come to me before she was captured?"

"The moments after the breach was formed were nothing but chaos for spirits. Wisdom saw the past and future collide, the beginning and the end of the Veil, and all the death it entailed. Each time we were brought back, she didn't know what was real until she saw me, and by then it was too late."

"Did any of the others know?"

"The other versions of you? I told some of them."

"How could they have sent you back if they knew-" he stopped as Vir shook her head sadly.

"But none of them ever sent me back, did they? Only my Hope and even I didn't know that until this time."

Solas stood, his head spinning with accusations and arguments that were useless and undeserved. He fought to control his anger at the one responsible, a person who well and truly out of his reach. "I need some time alone," he said.

"Of course," Vir said to the ground.

Solas picked a random direction and started walking. Over and over his friend had died due to the actions of his other selves. He could not imagine what she had been through. The thought stopped him in his tracks. He looked back at Vir, someone who had also relived the same life, certain of her own death. _Of course._ She had said. He must have walked away a thousand times, as a friend, as a lover, always leaving her to continue on alone.

He returned to her side and sat down. "You were alike," he said. "Both trapped in a cycle, forced to relive the same pain, and powerless to stop it."

Vir shook her head. "I wasn't powerless, and neither was she. She couldn't help me fight, or convince you to find a different path, but she was the one who speculated that you would survive the fall of the Veil unchanged if you didn't know we were real. At the very least, if you hated me, you wouldn't send me back." She finally looked at him. "Neither of us wanted to take that path, but," she gestured at him, "she was right."

Her words somehow made Wisdom's death better and worse at the same time. He stared at the picturesque mountains, the pleasant view a sharp contrast from what he had just learned. He remembered a time when he and Wisdom had explored those mountains, looking for the source of all the different colors.

He had told Wisdom that memories were a way for a person to live long after they are gone. She learned to see knowledge, both good and ill, as gifts to behold. He could try to remember her that way, and that, not a demon, is how she would always be. "I am glad that she wasn't alone in the end," he said finally. "I'm glad she was with a friend."

Vir shrugged. "As much of a friend as I could be a few hours at a time."

"How many times did you go back for her?"

She looked away. "Who would keep track of that?"

He had never asked exactly how many times she had been sent back. He only knew the number must have been sizeable, at more than ten thousand years, a decade at a time. "You would," he said.

She looked back at him in surprise. She swallowed, thinking for a moment. "One thousand one hundred thirty-seven times."

His heart hurt for both Vir and Wisdom, but he could only imagine how they had felt. He took her right hand in his. "I wanted to be alone to mourn my friend, but perhaps it would be better to share the loss with someone who cared for her as I did."

Vir sagged against him, no longer attempting to hold back her tears. "You really are different from the others."

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, resting his head against hers. "I hope so."


End file.
